ChampionSplit: A Historical Perspective

[EricH]

I’m seeing a lot of discussion about various forms of 2-Championship-splitting, many attempting to get one true World Champion. But there’s another factor to play in. FIRST specifically stated that the reason for the ChampionSplit was to increase the inspiration of Championship by allowing more teams and still being able to fit in. Whether you have to attend Championship to be inspired is a matter for discussing elsewhere.

I think I know somewhat of WHY they made that choice—it’s consistent with FIRST’s goals from the get-go—I just think they made a mistake by overlooking the competitive spirit of the teams. I’ve been around a while, so bear with me. I’m going to take us all way, way, way back to before this whole thing got started…

Most of us have heard the name “Dr. William Murphy” at events. He’s the one who founded the Woodie Flowers Award. But he’s also one of the people directly responsible for FIRST.

Your reading for today comes from Popular Science—the relevant portion is quoted, but the entire article is a good read.

In 1987, a doctor named William Murphy died and left his most prized possessions to his son, a doctor named William Murphy Jr. Not long after that, Murphy Jr. invited Kamen, who was already a successful inventor of medical devices, to his home. When, through casual conversation, Kamen learned that neglected somewhere in his friend's house, jammed into a cluttered closet or packed in a box, there was a Nobel Prize — the actual Nobel Prize diploma that his friend's father had received in 1934 for his treatment of anemia — something fired in Kamen's brain. Suddenly he could see it clearly: We're celebrating the wrong stuff. We should celebrate the heroes in science and technology the way we celebrate sports figures and entertainers. We need an organization directed at kids that exists solely for inspiration and recognition of science and technology.

Take a very close look at that last line. Remember that. I want to say that I remember hearing that Dean was helping clean out said closet and helped find said Nobel—probably a legend, though.

In 1989, Dean founded a non-profit. To give it its full moniker, the United States Foundation for Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (USFIRST, or as it is far more commonly known, FIRST) was founded for exactly that purpose. This foundation has a vision:

"To transform our culture by creating a world where science and technology are celebrated and where young people dream of becoming science and technology leaders."

And a mission:

Our mission is to inspire young people to be science and technology leaders, by engaging them in exciting mentor-based programs that build science, engineering and technology skills, that inspire innovation, and that foster well-rounded life capabilities including self-confidence, communication, and leadership.

(Both from http://www.usfirst.org/aboutus/vision)

Sometime around then, Dean met a certain distinguished MIT professor with a ponytail: Dr. Woodie Flowers. Woodie taught one of MIT’s most popular classes, which happened to include an engineering competition (which itself was wildly popular). Dean apparently thought this was a really great idea to accomplish the mission, vision, goal, and name of FIRST.

In 1992, the FIRST Robotics Competition made its debut, in a high school gym in Manchester, NH. 28 teams, playing on a “corny” field, with robots built from, among other things, parts from a dot-matrix printer. These robots were about the size of an FTC or VRC robot; their controls were tethered. But the next year, 26 teams came back (or for the first time, joined in). And the next year there were more. And more. And more. By 1996, there were regionals in a few places; the National competition was held at Epcot in various places. In 1999, alliances were added: “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” had taken hold in strategy, knocking off a lot of top robots, and so collusion, which wasn’t preventable, was required! By 2003, Epcot had been outgrown, so the FIRST Championship moved to Houston, then to Atlanta, and is now in St. Louis. Robots have gotten bigger, faster, more powerful—by the time I saw my first FRC robot (1997, in a post-season demo), they were nearly the current size. And FIRST has expanded its offerings: FLL in 2001, FTC starting around 2006 (depending on who you ask), JFLL in 2004.

FIRST has always tried to maximize the teams attending the Championship: in addition to qualifying by winning/RCA/EI/RAS, they’ve used a variety of methods to try to maintain 25% attendance, or once every 4 years. This has included even/odd team numbers in even/odd years and a points-based system (win award, get points, get over X points and go or something like that). Currently, it’s win/RCA/EI/RAS, Legacy/HoF, District rank, or the waitlist based on “longer time means more chances”. (Bonus trivia: It wasn’t until around the time alliances came along that there were ANY restrictions on attendance, besides attending one regional. That’s right, any team in FIRST could attend, just by paying for it. My, how times have changed.)

But there’s been one message that’s been piped through, year after year after year after year (OK, repeat that about another 20 times). “It’s not about the robots.” From the 2003 (or so) Kickoff: "at some point in the next six weeks you are going to start feeling like you are involved in a robot building contest. Then you are in serious trouble" -Dean Kamen (Note: I found this by a spotlight search.) If you’ve watched a Kickoff, or a Championship, Dean always gives homework: the homework is always about either growing FIRST or inspiring more people, or both.

Given some of the responses to the ChampionSplit, which is specifically to increase the Inspiration, I think some folks “are in serious trouble” (y’all know who you are). FIRST’s goal, FIRST’s reason for existence, is Inspiration. Not Competition (the C in FRC—incidentally, this is the only FIRST program that uses “competition” in its name). This move is about maximizing the Inspiration, with just a little easier time finding venues to boot (and maybe some other benefits that may or may not actually materialize).

This was never about Competition. Except as much as Competition contributes to Inspiration.

That being said, because the vehicle of choice is in fact a competition, I do believe that one world championship alliance does need to be crowned, OR the championships need to be specifically designated as “North” and “South” or some other designation that emphasizes their status as completely separate events. But intentionally splitting the championships so that all the competitive teams are at one and everybody else is at the other is probably not going to help maximize the Inspiration factor. My challenge to everybody is this: Find a way to maintain the Inspiration at or above current levels, at both sides of the ChampionSplit, and still get a single World Champion Alliance. Maybe there is no solution at all to this problem. Maybe it’s simple. Maybe it’s complicated. Bring it on, there’s more than 6 weeks to go, so if we can’t solve this I don’t know what we’re doing here.

[GaryVoshol]

Originally Posted by EricH

And FIRST has expanded its offerings: FLL in 2001,

FLL first showed up at Disney for the 2001-2 season (as a pilot of the World Festival), but the first game was in the 1998-9 season. And there was a pilot the year before that. World Festival started in full force at Houston in 2003.

Thank you for the history, Eric. It is always nice to learn about the beginnings of the organization that so many of us have dedicated our passion to.

You make a very clear statement about FIRST's main purpose being inspiration, something that I myself and I'm sure most others will agree with. Inspiration and recognition are without a doubt the goals of everyone here. And I will also agree - FIRST is not about the competition. It is about inspiring others to pursue excellence and recognizing the achievements of those who do.

However in order to understand how to best accomplish this mission, we need to understand the best ways to inspire and the proper way of handling recognition. And I believe this is where the disconnect is between the people involved in FIRST. We are all striving for the same goals, however our solutions on how to accomplish these goals are different. A rule I live my life by is that there are no bad people in the world. Everyone wants to do something good. Everyone in FIRST knows the importance of inspiring the future, recognizing others for their outstanding accomplishments, and the irreplaceable positive impact it can have on the world around us. These people dedicate their passion to this program because every single one of us knows it works. We may differ in what we do and how we do it but we are united in why we do it, and our motivations and end goals are the same.

When it comes down to it, every debate in FIRST, be it the championsplit, mentor involvement on teams, or resources and time allocation, is based on what we as individuals see as the best way of accomplishing these goals that we all believe in. In fact many times a lot of us get so caught up in arguing between our methods of accomplishing these goals that we weaken how effectively we can accomplish them just to prove that our way is better.

Some people see the competitive aspect of FIRST as a distraction from the fun of the whole thing. That those who focus on winning detract from the students' experience via mentor involvement and the creation of an unfair playing field. Conversely some believe that the competitive aspect of FIRST is one of the most effective methods of inspiration, and that a competitive team culture will not only push students to pursue excellence, but also be more likely to help them achieve it. I'm not going to say which is right or which is wrong, or if there even is a truly right answer.

I will say this: Step away from the idea of FIRST being a competition or not a competition. Put down the idea of how teams are run and how they should be run. Tell me what you think is the most effective way to inspire excellence in those around you, and the best ways to recognize it for those who have accomplished it, and tell me why. And this is open to everyone who reads this. I want to know what everyone thinks are the best ways of accomplishing our shared missions.

When the FIRST community finds the best ways to do these things, the answer on how we should act as an organization will be clear.

[John Retkowski]

Reserving a spot to make a post until I get home tomorrow and can actually use a computer instead of an iPhone. I've been thinking about the topic of inspiration and competition for a long time now and I need to speak my mind. Even if it's just for my own sanity.

[PayneTrain]

I've been stewing on this for a long time (some would say a month!) but between finals and taking on additional team responsibilities in a mini-crisis I haven't been able to adequately put it all on paper so I know exactly why the split is so bizarre and why I don't think it's the right move. There are a lot of ingredients in the stew so I pick out one every now and then to think about.

Some have said that if you chase excellence, you catch greatness. On 422, the general direction the team has been steered into is to chase greatness and catch something we're proud of (seasons like this year are why we aren't ready to take that next step yet). What does this mean to us specifically? Qualifying for championships is something that we think we should do every year. Not making the big show makes for a disappointing season in our book. Our goal is to make it as deep into CMP eliminations as we can make it. If we can just get one round closer to Einstein, that's a success for us.

These are not the only goals for 422, but these goals act as a great cinderblock on the accelerator while we try to wheel this team into hopefully being one of the best teams in FIRST in the next century or so. Pushing for these goals makes students want to work more and learn more, which means they want to build the skills and knowledge base while experiencing the crucible of an FRC season and bringing to light intangibles of leadership qualities, networking, critical thinking, and maybe if we're lucky, some charisma .

When you split the championship event, you could make an argument that you take have the edge off of these goals we set. We're not in it to win (check our record if you don't believe me) but the pursuit of winning is a very inspiring tool for 422 and hundreds of other FRC teams. The pursuit of that kind of recognition is valuable. Not only can we take accomplishments home to our friends and families, but they can be leveraged for future support and grow the program to inspire more people. In short, the question everyone should ask themselves is "At what point would the successful inspiration opportunity of championships be eliminated by certain changes, both already in motion and proposed?"

FIRST has a mission, a vision, and a history. It has a founder and a legend. It has a board of directors, a staff, volunteers, and sponsors. It has students, parents, mentors, coaches, teachers, and alumni. It has a unique meaning to the millions of people that have ever been involved with it or inspired by it, and we would all do well to recognize this fact.

[efoote868]

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to EricH again.

Appreciate the history, and challenge accepted.

[iVanDuzer]

I've heard a lot of people say a lot of stuff about Inspiration.
"More teams at two Championships will inspire more kids!"
"Splitting the playing field will be less inspiring!"
We can argue about this until we're blue in the face (and we have), but I think a lot of people are missing another letter in the FIRST acronym...

Recognition. A huge part of FIRST is that it recognizes excellence, whether it's on-field accomplishments, or designing a cool thing, or coming up with a neat way to program your robot.

Recognition means giving the Top Teams the stage they deserve to compete and show off what they've been up to. That's the Championship (or at least what it's evolved into).

Recognition means cheering when you see your robot included in an Event Recap video (bonus points if your robot was actually doing something).

A big part of Inspiration is Recognition. It's not just discovering that you can do this thing, but it's that other people can see and appreciate what you do. As a student, and as a mentor, the moments I saw my fellow competitors at their most excited was when they got their first medals. It's more than just the robot, and winning; it's the recognition of all the work you've done. If your robot moves, you've probably put in some serious hours to make it move. Who cares if we're not as good as 1114 or 2056 or whoever? We worked our butts off for six weeks to build something and now we have a tangible symbol of our success around our necks. We can bring these medals to school on Monday and show everyone and be just as big a deal as the basketball kids or the football kids.

Recognition is good. Recognition inspires. Recognition builds champions (and not just on the field).

The challenge with Recognition in regards to the Championsplit is that we're basically in the same basket as with Inspiration.
"Two Championships means more teams can be recognized for their accomplishments and dedication."
"Two Championships means that the winners are robbed of the true recognition they deserve."
Oi vey, here we go again. Except I think there's another level of recognition we're missing.

The Recognition of Science and Technology in the general population.

Some people have said that splitting the Championship follows the format other high-school sports follow, like football and basketball. There aren't any High School National Championships, so FIRST doesn't need them either! Except football and basketball aren't really lacking in terms of widespread recognition, are they? FRC is a niche sport (so niche that some people here won't even call it a sport at all!), so let's look at another niche sport that celebrates excellence and intelligence: the Spelling Bee.

I mean, how dramatic is a Spelling Bee? It's a bunch of kids standing up, staring into space, trying to remember how many Ds are in rhombidodecahedron. And yet, the Spelling Bee is so recognized we have Hollywood movies about it. What does FIRST have? A documentary that aired once or twice on PBS and is basically just a Black Eyed Peas concert with some robots tacked on to it? I want a Robert Downey Jr. movie where he builds a robot just to stomp on the teacher who failed him in Grade 10 Science like two decades ago!

In my opinion, the next step FIRST should tackle is continuing to Make FIRST Loud. Making FIRST Loud means making it more attractive to the general public. Why is the National Spelling Bee televised nationally, and Einstein isn't?

Making FIRST Loud means more Recognition... for Everybody! Tell me, is your high school basketball game televised nationally during Prime Time on ESPN? Well, my robot was. That's what I think we should work towards. When ESPN starts airing FIRST alongside the National Spelling Bee (I just googled it - they even air the preliminaries!) and the World Poker Tournament, we can go back to focusing entirely on Inspiration. When TSN starts airing event highlights from the Waterloo Regional, we've done our job.

The question that hasn't been asked (and we should ALL be asking) is:
How does the Championsplit impact the R in FIRST?

In my humble opinion, the Championsplit will make FIRST quieter. Big Media doesn't give any time to us with one event, and now we have to convince them to give us time for two? If you think that's easily doable, then I have a set of Toronto Maple Leafs playoffs tickets to sell you.

Don't think we need Big Media? I think we really do. FIRST is about changing the culture, and obviously we've done amazing things, but really, we have a long way to go. Ask anyone, and they probably at least know of the Spelling Bee, or the World Poker Tournament. But have they heard of FIRST?

Competitive Speed Walking is better well known than FIRST. It is an Olympic sport, but still...

Eric obviously knows his history, and I want to thank him the amazing read. I haven't been around FIRST for as long (2007 Waterloo), but I've noticed some things. I've noticed Dean pushing teams to be recognized in their community and in their school and in their media. I've noticed three words repeated ad nauseum: "Make FIRST Loud." I remember hearing about Will.I.Am and thinking "whoa, people might listen to us now."

In terms of Inspiration, the Championsplit makes sense. Or it doesn't make sense. It's a bit of a wash and the jury is still out. But in terms of Recognition? FIRST is taking a big step back. Actually, I think they're flat out running the other way.

Don't get me wrong - Inspiration is a huge part of FIRST. It is! FIRST has inspired me in so many ways, and I'm not even remotely interested in a career in Engineering, or Science, or Math. But so often, we put Recognition in the corner to give Inspiration the spotlight, when both should get curtain calls.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go watch Jason Bateman swear at some kids and try to win a spelling bee. And if you've managed to read through this whole thing, then you deserve to join me. I'll grab the popcorn.

[Lil' Lavery]

What audience needs to provide recognition to science and technology? Is it our peers? Or is it the unwashed masses? Is the recognition of a FIRST team via awards or competition achievements the same as the recognition of science and technology?

[Richard Wallace]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

What audience needs to provide recognition to science and technology? Is it our peers? Or is it the unwashed masses? Is the recognition of a FIRST team via awards or competition achievements the same as the recognition of science and technology?

To cite the obvious:

Originally Posted by FIRST Vision

"To transform our culture by creating a world where science and technology are celebrated and where young people dream of becoming science and technology leaders."

Dean Kamen, Founder

Emphasis mine. The audience is the world.

[Pault]

Originally Posted by Richard Wallace

To cite the obvious:Emphasis mine. The audience is the world.

Which is why I am so concerned by the part of Frank's blog responding to the communities initial reaction in which he talks about the goals of FIRST.

Originally Posted by Frank Merrick

I personally believe that Championship is about two things – Inspiration and Recognition. I don’t think I’m going out on limb here. I believe some percentage of our teams deserve recognition. These are the teams that win the awards and have the great robots, strategy, and skill necessary to perform at the highest levels on the field. Those teams rightly get attention and accolades from the community for their tremendous accomplishments, and, I think, help drive the aspirations of teams that someday want to be able to perform at that level.

This isn't just a disconnect between the teams and FIRST HQ, this is FIRST forgetting one of the key components of their own mission. It was not long ago that "Make It Loud" was one of FIRST's favorite catchphrases, but I haven't heard anything about it in an entire year.

[Citrus Dad]

Originally Posted by Pault

Which is why I am so concerned by the part of Frank's blog responding to the communities initial reaction in which he talks about the goals of FIRST.



This isn't just a disconnect between the teams and FIRST HQ, this is FIRST forgetting one of the key components of their own mission. It was not long ago that "Make It Loud" was one of FIRST's favorite catchphrases, but I haven't heard anything about it in an entire year.

From the lastest FRC email from FIRST:

Make it LOUD on Capitol Hill - Registration Deadline is Thursday, May 14th! We are looking for 6 more teams to join FRC Team RUSH 27 and many other FIRST teams at the second annual FIRST National Advocacy Conference on June 14-16th in Washington, DC!

To change our culture to one that values STEM, we must get the policy makers in Washington, DC on board with knowing about and supporting FIRST and STEM in education. For the first time ever, the proposed Elementary and Secondary Education Act contains support for teams participating in after-school mentor-based STEM engagement programs like FIRST. The more FIRST teams we can have advocating for this, the better chance we have of passing this legislation through the House of Representatives and Senate and getting the President's signature on it to make it law!

This is a historic time in Washington, DC and you can be part of increasing STEM engagement throughout the United States. For additional information on the conference, along with registration information, please visit: http://www.teamrush27.net/nac. The registration deadline is Thursday, May 14th.

[ryanmathewson]

One of the first times I was inspired by robots was (through the semi inappropriate show) Battlebots. Having that national TV time was huge.

Since inspiration is such a huge factor in FIRST, I would love to see at least the 2 Championships (or 1 for 2016) get some TV time on a major channel, preferably one available on basic cable or antenna TV. If I remember correctly, I read some of the late 90's competitions were shown on ESPN. Getting on the airwaves of basic television could inspire kids in places and in socioeconomic levels that we were never able to reach before. With the availability of at least a computer or two at nearly every school in the nation, having something on TV that is so incredibly cool and inspiring will drive kids to jump on that one computer and do research. Next thing you know, you have a plot similar to the Spare Parts movie that came out this year.

This year in St. Louis was my first year at Championship, as well as my team's first. I wish I was still young enough to be on the team when we made it, but I was incredibly proud seeing them even make it that far, and finishing middle of the pack.

At championship, I had the fortune of doing many things: Volunteering on field repair/reset for Galileo and interacting with those teams every match on Thursday, Exhibiting for an international Engineering fraternity and sorority (Sigma Phi Delta and Alpha Omega Epsilon), and being a mentor for a team that made it that far. When I walked in to the dome on Tuesday during field set-up, I couldn't contain my excitement: We had made it. And over the next two days as teams showed up, It went from real to extremely real. I could see in the eyes of everyone I talked to, no matter which of the 3 things I was doing, that they were extremely excited to be there and inspired by such a huge event.

If inspiration is really what FIRST is about, the split is great. The only difference I think should be changed, is we should have one winning alliance. This would maintain one of the few competition aspects that people complain about losing due to two championships. Maybe that requires FIRST paying for the 8 "Einstein" alliances to gain free travel to the second championship to compete there in an extra large Einstein bracket. Maybe it's just the winning alliance of the first championship comes to the second to face the winner of that championship to crown the ultimate victor. I don't know. But as long as we distinguish championships apart, say "north" and "south" as previously suggested, I would be fine with two winning alliances as long as the inspiration is the main goal.

Since I graduated, I've always loved the quote, "Inspire a Generation." It's the reason I am as active as possible in FIRST even with college. The inspiration I got from FIRST, mentors, coaches, and everything I learned through FIRST are the reasons I landed a NASA internship this summer as a rising college junior at the University of Missouri. We need to keep that going, for the sake of the future generations. Even as a college sophomore, white middle-class male, average GPA, Mechanical Engineering major, not at a highly envied engineering school, about as average and non diverse as you get, I thought I could get an internship because you all made me believe I could. And after 8 months, 35 companies, almost 100 position applications, only 2 interviews, many rejection emails, and a last minute phone call, I get to work for my dream company. And if you all can inspire me, you can inspire anyone else to do the same thing, to push their goals and keep pushing to achieve them.

Pay it forward and keep inspiring, FIRST.

[John Retkowski]

Originally Posted by John Retkowski

Reserving a spot to make a post until I get home tomorrow and can actually use a computer instead of an iPhone. I've been thinking about the topic of inspiration and competition for a long time now and I need to speak my mind. Even if it's just for my own sanity.

Well it seems I can't edit my post for some reason so I'll just make a new reply.

I agree very much with the OP's point of view. However, with all due respect, I find it hard to understand the argument: "It's not about the robots." I believe the robots are a lot more important than many of us realize both in a competitive way and different way.

Let's ask ourselves this,” If it’s not about the robots, what's FIRST about?”
Easy. It's about inspiration.
Next question: What are we trying to inspire?
Another pretty straight forward answer. We're trying to inspire young people (really everybody) to become STEM leaders and show people how much science and technology matter.
One more question. (cmon you guys are smart you can do it)

How do we inspire? By building and competing with robots!
But it's not about the robots. Heh? Why are we trying to inspire people again? Yet the one thing that we might try to convince ourselves isn't important is the example of the same science and technology that we're trying to inspire people with. The robots! This might not be focused around competition, (although I feel that is getting undervalued as well but that will be my second point) but it should be focused on learning about science and technology and how we learn is by building robots. I can only speak for myself, but when I first heard about a robotics team in my area I didn't join because I thought, "Hey, maybe I can work on writing a paper." I wasn't thinking, "I hope they'll have a business plan!" I'm willing to bet that most young people first joined a team for one reason: To build robots. Why they stayed or got inspired by FIRST may be a different reason, but a robotics competition got them in the door giving them a rare opportunity to start on an early path to success in life and realize their dreams. Being on a team, I realize how important Chairman's and a business plan are, but I'm not inspired by them.

I was inspired when I first heard about the concept of a chokehold strategy. I was inspired by seeing so many people put in ridiculous amounts of work to build amazing, beautiful, quality machines. (And I might add that by beauty I don't mean looks) I was inspired when our team won our first district event, and then our second and third. I was inspired when we came back from an 82 point match in the quarterfinals at MAR championships and ended up going all the way to win. I was inspired when I saw 971's arm come out to pick up a tote for the first time. I was and am still inspired by the countless mentors who sacrifice so much to teach these kids. I get inspired when I see teams working together both in the pits and on the field to break limits they never thought they could. I also understand that many people aren't inspired by the same things I am. People get inspired by The Chairman's Award, the business plan, getting sponsors, and many other things. I'm glad people get inspired by these things. They're all extremely important. But the Chairman's Award and the robots aren't as different as they first appear.

They both serve to push the message and ideals of FIRST. They both serve to inspire people about STEM. The Chairman's Award is the highest honor in FIRST. Teams are rewarded for getting out in their communities and not only teaching people about FIRST, but also helping people in general. What I'm trying to get to is this. What would we have if we took the robots and competition out of FIRST? Would we have a glorified woodshop? Would we have a community outreach program? I'm not undermining community outreach. We should be gracious and professional everywhere even outside of FIRST. We should do everything we can to help our fellow man. That's what engineers and all people should do. We should help people everywhere. That brings us back to why we're trying to inspire people: to prove that this stuff matters. Like it or not, the robots are what bring people to FIRST. They're what bring us all together. They're what make us a family .

Now to the competition aspect. Before I even talk about competition in regards to FIRST, let me talk about the most famous form of competition in the world. Sports. Every year, millions and millions of people act crazy over sports (kind of similar to how we do over FRC). Many kids dream of growing up to be pro sports players regardless of the minute chance that they will. Why? Because they are inspired by it. They are inspired by the fierce competition. They are inspired by beating their opponents when no one thought they would. They are inspired by working their butts off, competing, and trying to win. Who wouldn't be? It's human nature to be inspired by these things.
Now bring it back to FRC. Why do we hate competition so much? Why do we say it doesn't matter? We put in so much hard work to sell ourselves short. Competition has become a dirty word, but it's not just about winning. It's about striving to be your best, it's about sportsmanship a.k.a. GP and encouraging your teammates and competitors to pick themselves back up when they lose and to never stop trying to be their best.

This is all just my opinion. I apologize if I'm not even mentioning the championship, but whether we do the right thing or the wrong thing, I don't think the Championship(s) will matter at that point.

[EricH]

Originally Posted by John Retkowski

However, with all due respect, I find it hard to understand the argument: "It's not about the robots." I believe the robots are a lot more important than many of us realize both in a competitive way and different way.

Let's ask ourselves this,” If it’s not about the robots, what's FIRST about?”
Easy. It's about inspiration.
Next question: What are we trying to inspire?
Another pretty straight forward answer. We're trying to inspire young people (really everybody) to become STEM leaders and show people how much science and technology matter.
One more question. (cmon you guys are smart you can do it)

How do we inspire? By building and competing with robots!
But it's not about the robots. [...] I can only speak for myself, but when I first heard about a robotics team in my area I didn't join because I thought, "Hey, maybe I can work on writing a paper." I wasn't thinking, "I hope they'll have a business plan!" I'm willing to bet that most young people first joined a team for one reason: To build robots.

You've gone fishing, right? Let's take a look at a typical fishing trip from the perspective of a fish. (Trust me, I'm going somewhere with this.)

"Oh, hey, that looks (or smells) tasty. I think I'll take a look and see if it actually is good." *nibble* "Eh, not bad. But I'll pass for now--wait, it's leaving!" (This is the one where the fisherman thinks the nibble is the real bite.)

"Oh, hey, that looks (or smells) tasty. I think I'll take a look and see if it actually is good." *nibble* "YUM!" *bites the whole thing* "Hey, OW, WAIT, STOP, I don't like this! Wait, there's a new world out here I can just barely see OW!" (Doesn't end well for the fish, so I'll stop there.)

"That" is the bait, wrapped around the hook--which is, of course, reeled in. Did I mention that I was going somewhere with this? First, let's see if you can figure out this one: who's saying it, and what is "that"?

"Hey, that looks interesting. I'll take a look and see what's up." *a few months--or years--later* "WOW. That was intense. There's so much to learn and see out in the STEM fields." (or... "Meh, not my cup of tea.")

Give up? Of course, it's a new student joining a robotics team because of the robot! (The other one is a student deciding that he/she isn't interested.)


By this time, if you've made it this far, you're asking "what's his point?" My point is this: It's not about the robots, because the robots are the bait, hook, line and sinker. We're the fishermen trying to catch the students to inspire, and we're using a robot to do it. For the students, yep, it's all about the robot: for those that see the bigger picture (including the students who've been around a while), the robot is just a vehicle. To go back to fishing for a moment, you could also: use a big net (trawling), "tickle" a fish (AKA barehanded grabs), or spear a fish (or other ways).

This is all about the robots because it is NOT all about the robots. For better or worse, FIRST has chosen to use robotics competitions as their primary vehicle of achieving their goals. They've put a lot into those competitions. After the first year, they could have backed off, gone to another idea... but they stayed with it. Now... there's no way out, for them. It has to be about the robots... because otherwise, how are they going to reach kids? It has to not be about the robots... because their purpose is not to find the best robot for X but to inspire and recognize.

It's a vicious cycle, and it's difficult to explain. I hope I've been clear enough, but if I go further I'll be having a circular argument with myself on how it is/is not about the robots because it is not/is about the robots and all that.


Which leads us back towards the original question, which I'll expand slightly:
Is there a way to still crown a single World Champion Alliance, while still maintaining the Inspiration and the Recognition of a single Championship event, in two (or more) ChampionSplit events? As a side item, is it possible to also get 25% or so of FRC teams TO the Championship?


My answer to my own challenge... let's just say I cheat in mine, and look a lot longer than the two years we have to come up with a good one. I don't look at 2017. I'm looking at 2021 and beyond. I'm also looking at all the areas that aren't districts.

Spoiler for stop reading if you don't want my opinions to form yours:

My answer is simple: We've got 5 years to get as much of FRC as possible into a district system. THEN we can go to FIRST and say, "You know that SuperRegional model you had like 10 years ago? You wanna break that out again, and reformat the DCMPs and ChampionSplits into SuperRegionals, and give us one World Championship again? Oh, and while you're at it, can we get some of the Championship items like conferences and a Hall of Fame to the SuperRegionals?"

In my opinion, that's the only way we can accomplish all of the items above. It's going to take time--time we have, and don't have. It's going to take volunteers we need to recruit, take venues we need to find, take teams that don't exist yet that need to be started. It's not an easy solution, but difficult problems often demand difficult solutions.

[Citrus Dad]

Thank you Eric for starting the more fundamental discussion about the how does FIRST best achieve its goals through the FRC program. The history is very helpful for context. At the heart of this discussion is the question "how important is the competitive structure for FRC to this goal?"

I think some of the conflict over who favors Championsplit depends on which method one believes will spread the FIRST message through the culture: at the grassroots level by increasing individual team size and existing teams adding new teams, or at the higher culture level through various forms of media that inspire creation of new teams and students joining existing teams. Bringing more teams to a large event and increasing the likelihood of competitive success for a team fits with the first belief; creating a more competitive event that might attract more public attention fits with the latter. These two ideas need not conflict, but there are trade offs. I've seen success of both types, but from my professional experience I've seen that the most rapid social changes have been top down simply because adoption can spring from multiple sources simultaneously, not just one or a few.

To start the discussion of my rationale, I'm adding my own understanding of the FIRST origin story. I've seen Kamen say twice (once in "The New Cool" and again in "Slingshot") that he came up with the idea of creating a program based on a sporting metaphor when he was in a science museum store and the kids were much more excited about sports team gear than science gizmos. I think this has been a brilliant idea. The program's success speaks for itself.

To what extent is the fascination with due to be engaged with the sporting activity, i.e., playing, and how much with the success of the team, i.e., being a fan? Of course there is cross over between these two, but I believe the excitement that Kamen witnessed was more of the latter. I played touch football as a kid, but I continue to be a college football fan and attend games time to time. The Super Bowl is the most watched event each year and very few watching have ever played serious football. And fans are most interested in following winning teams, even championship teams. Except for the Cubs, the most notable teams are those that rack up championships. Dallas became "America's Team" because of they continually challenged for and won the Super Bowl. The Yankees from the 1920s to 1950s were the most popular team in US, and the winningest. On this basis I believe the popularity of sports teams is highly correlated with competitive success tied to winning championships.

I believe the goal of FIRST is cultural engineering to bring recognition of STEM
in the same manner as sports (and entertainment) icons. FIRST is trying to reach beyond the "usual suspects" of students to recruit into STEM using this strategy. Much more of the student population is engaged passionately in sports (or even video games). Attracting students to FIRST programs is one important step, but if students joined other STEM programs after watching an FRC competition, that would be an equal success. So to achieve that goal, FIRST must promote FRC in a way that attracts the attention of a broader segment of the population.

In large part promoting FRC requires more than just creating a competition; it also means developing a strong marketing message to promote that competition. A simple "field of dreams" vision of "if we build it they will come" is not realistic. (This reminds me of the attitude toward the economic transformation in Eastern Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Many said "markets will just happen" but that wasn't the case--creating functional markets requires lots of institutional groundwork.) There a number of things the FIRST still needs to better develop its "retail" product for wider consumption, some of which I've posted in the Einstein experience thread. But I believe delivering a better retail product hinges on a key principle: that the competition arrive at a single identifiable champion in a competition in front of the largest possible audience. Television wants 20,000 people in the stands, not what can fit in a high school gym. And they also want to be able to easily tell a story, including low production costs for following a story--that means competition at a single venue. That is the single best way to generate the buzz needed to spread the message through our culture.

Note where there are multiple championships, e.g., state high school sports, there are classification differences, e.g., larger vs small school divisions. No sport immediately comes to mind where there are true "dual" or "multiple" championships for equally qualified participants. The closest counterexample I can think of is NCAA Division 1A football that had multiple bowl games and the year end champion was voted on in polls. (Bowl games didn't even count in the polls until the 1950s.) But even that effectively came to an end in 1998 with the BCS and was even further unified this year. The only other one might be the boxing/ultimate fighting federations that have rival championships, but even those have their biggest events when they unify these championships.

With the objective of a unified championship, a number of ideas have been proposed as an alternative to the SW/NE geographic championsplit that FIRST has implicitly offered so far.
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...hreadid=137096
These all meet the general objective of 800 teams at two events, but they don't all reduce travel costs, but some do almost as well as FIRST's proposal. Here's a brief summary of what has been proposed:

1) Two-tiered championships, with the first 400 and second 400 teams based on one of the following 3 criteria:
- Using the status quo system with all finalists qualifying plus additional metrics
- Using quasi-district points to rank teams
- Using previous championship or season rankings to determine event eligibility
2) Two tiered championship in which the first and second 100 teams are ranked by district points and assigned to separate events; the other 300 are assigned geographically and qualified in the manner that FIRST is proposing for championsplit. (This probably best meets the travel cost goal.)
3) Ending the first event at the division titles and bring those winners to the second event to play on the Einstein field.
4) World Champs/World Festival in which the former is competitive and the latter open to a wider set of teams.
5) Create two types of qualifying, the first based on on-field competition success ("Recognition") and the second on awards success ("Inspiration").

I think anyone of these ideas will work better to raise the profile of FRC in the general public than a dual championship. Last night our team was recognized by our school board for winning the World Championship. It as an easy concept to explain to them. We hadn't gotten the same recognition for winning our division the last two years even though they were probably equivalent to winning a sports section title. And now we've been invited to meet with the state senator representing our town. I doubt we could leverage that kind of access unless we are World Champs (singular). (And we hope we can benefit all California teams in that meeting.)